A fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, Mr. Watkins studies inequality, Social Security reform, the welfare state and the moral foundations of capitalism. He has been interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV programs, and speaks and debates regularly at conferences and university campuses, including Stanford, Brown, the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. Mr. Watkins is the host of a podcast on inequality and the welfare state, The Debt Dialogues, which has featured guests such as George Will, Walter Williams and Charles Murray.

A Forbes.com columnist from 2010 to 2013, his writings have also appeared in The Guardian, Claremont Review of Books, USA Today, Forbes, Christian Science Monitor, Investor’s Business Daily, The Daily Caller and FoxNews.com, among many others.